By JOHN IWASAKI, P-I REPORTER

Published 10:00 pm, Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Confirmed cases of child abuse and neglect in Army families substantially increase when one parent, usually the soldier father, is deployed to combat, according to a new Pentagon-funded report.

The study of nearly 1,800 families, including some at Fort Lewis, found that the rate of child maltreatment was 42 percent greater during deployments compared with times when soldiers were home.

Civilian mothers were nearly four times as likely to neglect their children than when their husbands were at home, and nearly twice as likely to physically abuse them, according to research appearing in Wednesday's issue of the Journal of American Medical Association.

What surprised researchers was "how strong the results were and how consistently they applied" to families regardless of socioeconomic status and other characteristics often linked to abuse and neglect, lead author Deborah Gibbs said Tuesday.

"It's not an isolated phenomenon," she said. "The evidence is pretty strong that combat-related deployments are responsible for the increase."

"Families are placed on additional stress. The parent is deployed. You're going to have increased cases of neglect," said Lt. Col. Kris Peterson, chief of psychiatry at Madigan. "Some of that is intuitive. (But) military families are very resilient. They have income, medical resources, places to get help, so these things have been looked into."

Gibbs emphasized the problem was not rampant among Army families in which one parent was deployed and another was a civilian.

Her team's research of such families in which child maltreatment was substantiated found 3,334 incidents during the 40-month study. Ninety percent of the offenders maltreated their children on a single day during that time.

"It's safe to say that this is a small part of Army families with a soldier deployed," said Gibbs, a senior health analyst at the non-profit RTI International in Research Triangle Park, N.C. "Most Army families do a terrific job with coping with stresses that are tough to imagine."

Officials at Madigan and Fort Lewis listed an array of programs and services they provide to families to deal with stress before, during and after deployments.

The offerings include counseling and other mental health services, support networks, parenting classes, child care and fitness programs.

The Army also refers parents to off-base resources.

Madigan has preventative intervention programs for couples and families and social workers "designated to deal with soldiers and families on deployment-related issues," said Col. Samuel Mack, chief of social work.

The medical center has trained counselors in nearby school districts to help 150 to 200 children with acute needs related to bereavement and deployments, said David Callies, chief of children and family services.